Republic of Hill & Knowlton
By Paul
The UK Telegraph reports that the government of Maldives is using the services of Hill & Knowlton UK to improve its image overseas;
“The Maldives government has enlisted the services of a former Labour spin doctor to try to improve its tarnished image abroad.
Tim Fallon, a public relations expert who was seconded to Tony Blair's election team in 1997, is in charge of the Maldives account for the Hill and Knowlton PR agency.
There are some striking similarities between the New Labour spin machine and the tactics used by President Gayoom's autocratic regime
In May 2004, six months after Hill and Knowlton accepted a £13,000-a-month retainer, the government opened a "strategic communications unit" which almost daily pumps out press releases trumpeting the dictatorship's paper commitments to reform.”
We all have heard about the case of ‘babies in incubators’ during the first gulf war;
“More than 10 years later, I can still recall my brother Sean's face. It was bright red. Furious. Not one given to fits of temper, Sean was in an uproar. He was a father, and he had just heard that Iraqi soldiers had taken scores of babies out of incubators in Kuwait City and left them to die. The Iraqis had shipped the incubators back to Baghdad. A pacifist by nature, my brother was not in a peaceful mood that day. "We've got to go and get Saddam Hussein. Now," he said passionately….The Kuwait government had to find a way to "sell the war" to the American public, who were interested, but not deeply involved. So under the auspices of a group called Citizen for a Free Kuwait, which was really the Kuwait government in exile (the group received almost $12 million from the Kuwaiti government, and only $17,000 from others, according to author John R. MacArthur) the American PR firm Hill & Knowlton was hired for $10.7 million to devise a campaign to win American support for the war. Craig Fuller, the firm's president and COO, had been then-President George Bush's chief of staff when the senior Bush has served as vice president under Ronald Reagan. The move made a lot of sense – after all, access to power is everything in Washington and the Hill & Knowlton people had lots of that.”
Some spin on behalf of rich countries may not be so much of a problem. But spinning for poor undemocratic countries using public money has real costs on the development.
Do you agree with the comment made by Tim Fallon? Let us know what you think?
"We are working to assist the government in a process of engagement with international institutions which we believe will ultimately be to the benefit of all the people of the Maldives."
Related Links:
Struggle for democracy exposes the dark side of paradise islands
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